Settings Sent to the Watch

When the watch app calls AWWCSessionManager.shared.applyiPhoneSettings, the phone answers with the dictionary below. Every value comes from the AppleWatchDevice in the deployed study protocol, produced by AppleWatchDevice.toWatchSettings().

You need this page if you are writing your own watch app, extending the one in this documentation, or debugging why a setting did not take effect.

The settings dictionary

Key	Type	Applied automatically by AWARE	From AppleWatchDevice
label	String	✓ sensor.set(label:)	label
db_host	String	✓ dbEngine.config.host	awareServerUrl
debug	Bool	✓ syncConfig.debug	enableNativeLogging
motion_sensor_hz	Int	—	motionSamplingRate
watch_motion_enabled	Bool	—	motionEnabled
watch_motion_accelerometer_enabled	Bool	—	accelerometerEnabled
watch_motion_device_motion_enabled	Bool	—	deviceMotionEnabled
watch_battery_enabled	Bool	—	batteryEnabled
watch_device_enabled	Bool	—	deviceInfoEnabled
watch_healthkit_enabled	Bool	—	heartRateEnabled
watch_location_enabled	Bool	—	locationEnabled
watch_heading_enabled	Bool	—	headingEnabled
watch_bluetooth_enabled	Bool	—	bluetoothEnabled
watch_audio_enabled	Bool	—	audioEnabled
watch_audio_ambient_noise_enabled	Bool	—	ambientNoiseEnabled
watch_audio_classification_enabled	Bool	—	audioClassificationEnabled
watch_audio_duty_cycle_enabled	Bool	—	audioDutyCycleEnabled
watch_audio_active_duration	Double (seconds)	—	audioActiveDuration
watch_audio_rest_duration	Double (seconds)	—	audioRestDuration
file_transfer_interval_seconds	Double (seconds)	—	fileTransferInterval
watch_background_session_type	String	—	backgroundSessionType
watch_transfer_mode	String	—	transferMode
watch_delete_after_transfer	Bool	—	deleteAfterTransfer

Applied automatically by AWARE means the framework applies the value to every registered sensor on its own. Everything else has to be read and applied by the watch app, because only the watch app knows which sensors exist — that is what apply(settings:) does in the example controller.

Note

The last two keys — watch_transfer_mode and watch_delete_after_transfer — are added by carp_aware_package. The plain AWARE framework does not know about them, so they are forwarded to the watch verbatim.

Phone-side only

One setting never reaches the watch:

Key	From AppleWatchDevice	Effect
save_to_local_aware_database	saveToLocalAwareDatabase	Whether the phone also writes received records into its own AWARE database

Adding a setting of your own

Two small changes, one on each side:

1. Send it from Dart

   Add the key to AppleWatchDevice.toWatchSettings(). Keys the native AppleWatchSensor.Config does not recognise are forwarded to the watch unchanged, so no native change is needed on the phone.

2. Read it on the watch

   Pick it up in apply(settings:) in your watch controller and apply it to the sensor configuration it belongs to.

   if let threshold = settings["my_custom_threshold"] as? Double {
       mySensor.CONFIG.threshold = threshold
   }

When settings take effect

Settings are pulled by the watch, not pushed to it. The watch app requests them:

• on startup, and
• whenever it calls applyiPhoneSettings() — the Reload settings button in the example app.

After applying them the controller restarts the sensors, so a changed configuration takes effect immediately once it has been fetched. A protocol update therefore reaches the watch within one watch-app launch, not instantly.